On the Run
by SteakHeart
Summary: In 2010, a twentysomething Assassin and his friend are on the run from Templars after a job gone slightly wrong. Contains stylish violence, language, awkward sexual tension - no sex, though- and sweet one-liners. First fic, constructive criticism welcome.
1. Chapter 1

On the Run: A Modern-Day Assassin's Tale

Chapter 1

The Assassin's hidden blade is a work of deadly art. Once, the tool took the form of a gauntlet you wore, which unfortunately could easily be seen over your clothing. Nowadays the gauntlet is thin, so it can be hidden under your sleeve. It's made of titanium alloy, coated with a special mixture that makes it undetectable by x-rays. The blade is also titanium, laser-sharpened to the molecular level for penetrating armor and laced with a deadly nerve toxin that can kill in seconds flat. It's deployed with a button on a ring wirelessly linked to the device. One press and a perfectly timed flick of the wrist later, the blade extends silently in an instant, ready to kill.

I remember when I first laid my hands on this device on Chanukah. My best friend (and only friend, really) Sam gave it to me.

"Damn, you bought this thing with your own money?" I asked, clipping it onto my forearm.

"Hell, no!" Sam responded, handing me another present. "The powers that be decided that it was time for you to get your blade, so they gave it to some other guy to give it to me to give it to you. Harder to trace that way."

I slipped the ring on my left index finger and flicked the blade open. The blade glinted in the light. I was thankful for the gift. Up until now, I had had to make do with a particularly sharp kitchen knife I had ironically named "Mercy" to carry out my assassination work.

I used the blade to slice open the next present, a good sixty dollars' worth of Space Marine miniatures.

"Now THAT I bought with my own money," Sam said with a grin. "You owe me a present."

"I'll find something," I said to her.

"Yeah, I gotta head out now. Templar agent downtown just slipped up and revealed himself, so now I've got the prime opportunity to take him out." She stood up and pulled on her hoodie, zipping it up halfway.

I stood up as well. "Can I tag along? Pretty please with a ten millimeter on top?"

She sighed. "I guess I could use the help." She tossed me a Bluetooth and I put it on my ear, and then put on my hoodie, keeping it unzipped. I stuffed Mercy in a specially-made holster in my hoodie, Sam flipped her hood up, and we set off.

"Wait, do you have a car?"

"No," I said.

"Damn. We should be heading there separately for safety."

"When do rules stop me?" I said with a grin, hopping into the shotgun seat of Sam's car.

Sam got in the driver's seat and put in the key. "Okay, here's the plan."

"Plan? You're still planning these things?"

"Without a plan you mess up more. Remember what Master Goldman told us?"

I sighed.

"The plan is the most important part of a successful assassination; without it, it is not complete," we both said at the same time, my tone exasperated. "Alright, fine, lay it on me."

"Alright, so when we get there…"

I listened to her plan. I wasn't much for a pre-made plan. I preferred to just get in, get my stab on, then run like hell across the rooftops. Most assassinations ended up like that even with a plan.

Half an hour passed. We arrived at an abandoned factory.

"Alright, I'll head around back; you get rid of any guards. Stop staring at my chest."

"Sorry."

"I take out the target and head back the way I came and meet you at the car. Deal?"

"Deal." I watched her sprint off down the side of the factory, then headed to the front myself. As expected, a group of men in suits approached me. One was holding a cell phone.

"Wonderful weather we're having," the tallest man in the group said.

"If this is some kind of code, I don't know, man." In the blink of an eye, my blade was out and swung to the side. The man stood for a moment, then his throat burst with blood. The poison in the blade took effect almost instantly, and he collapsed. I punched the second man in the throat and deflected an incoming stab from the third man's hidden blade. The fourth man in the group ran off, probably to warn his boss. I pulled Mercy from her sheath and sent it flying into the man's neck. He fell, choking on blood.

The two remaining men lunged at me. I dodged to the side and tripped the third man. He fell, and I heard his nose breaking when he hit the floor. I spun around the second man and stabbed him in the spine. His legs collapsed, and the poison coursed up his spinal column into his brain, killing him. I kicked the remaining guard in the groin, then punched him in the head a few times until I felt his skull crack. I stood up and stowed my blade.

"Hate to cut and run," I said in what was supposed to be a totally smooth, hard-boiled-killer manner. I waited a bit and peeked out the front door. Sam wasn't at the car yet. "Where are you?" I said, pressing the button on the Bluetooth. Sam told me she just finished up and was headed my way. I ran to the car and got in the passenger seat. Seconds later, Sam swung into the driver's seat.

"Good job," Sam said to me, giving me a high-five. She hit the gas, and we were off.

"So how did the kill go? Did you finally come up with a badass one-liner?"

"No, those are your thing, remember?"

"Meh, you'll get it in time. It all comes with practice. Like killing, or making love."

"But you don't have any experience with that last one. Doubt you ever will."

"I don't know why I still invite you over to my place sometimes," I muttered.

Back in the factory, the man with the cracked skull groaned. He pulled out his cell phone and dragged himself towards the man who had tried to run. He pulled the knife from his colleague and scanned it with an app on his phone, sending the fingerprint results to a database across the pond. He sent a short message along with it.

_Assassins attacked. Killed everyone. Find owner of knife. Track down._

He sent the message just in time to look up and see me looking down at him. "I almost forgot about you," I said, plucking the knife from the Templar's hand stabbing the wounded agent through the eye. "There we go. Wouldn't want to leave you here as evidence, would we, Mercy?"

"You named your knife? You're a fuckin' nutjob!" Sam said.

"I just felt it was fitting! My great-great-great-greatsomething grandpa's friend named his sword Bianca, what's stopping me from giving my favorite meat knife a fittingly ironic name?" I stomped on the man's phone hard enough to break it in half, then sprinted back to the car.

"And you freakin' talked to it," Sam muttered, introducing pedal to metal and speeding away. "Oh, Jesus, something just hit me."

"Yeah?"

"What if the guy used that phone to call for help or something?"

"C'mon, what are the odds of that? I think we made a point to them. Let's head back to my place and christen those new miniatures."

"I thought you were going to say something else for a moment, a game of Warhammer would be fine."

"What was I gonna say?"

"Have you ever heard the phrase, 'christen the sheets?'?"

"What? No! I mean, yeah, I'd gladly do that if you want, but hell, we just killed a bunch of guys, I think that would be kind of awkward, don't you?"

"Yeah, exactly. And no, I don't want to."

There was an awkward pause.

"Want to forget that conversation happened?"

"Yep."


	2. Chapter 2  And a Kickass New Year

Chapter 2: And a Kickass New Year

I moved my new Devastator squad, equipped with heavy bolters and plasma cannons, in for the kill. Sam's Carnifex wasn't going anywhere.

"What a great way to spend Chanukah: Getting my first hidden blade, killing some Templar assholes, then playing a game of 40k."

"Hooah," Sam said. "Carnifex uses bio-plasma." A few rolls-of-the-dice later and my Devastators were wiped out. So much for kicking her ass. A few moves later and my close combat Terminators were surrounded. I won't bore you with the details, since more shit was about to go down.

"Miss!" I shouted with glee. Seconds later, a hail of silenced rifle fire whizzed past my head. "And a few more," I muttered, grabbing my trusty silenced USP .45 from my closet. I racked the slide. "Sam, get down, I'll take care of these guys."

"I told you that guy sent a message!" she said, flipping me off. I crouched under the window where the gunfire came from. I smashed the window with my elbow and took a few potshots to distract the sniper. I heard a grunt of pain. I peeked over the window, but a bullet missed me by an inch, and I ducked down again. The guy must not have been dead.

"_Second lousy goddamn time today,"_ I whispered. I distracted the sniper with a few more shots, then sprinted down the stairs and to the back door. I muttered a quick prayer.

"Chris, what the fuck are you doing?" Sam shouted down to me.

"Don't ask me, I don't have a plan! Distract him!" I responded, and ran out into the night.

"How the fuck do I do that?" Sam called, but I was already on my way. Bullets whizzed past me left and right as I ran in a serpentine pattern towards the woods. I broke into the treeline and saw a glint off of a scope about fifty meters away. Ducking from tree to tree, I made progress towards the sniper, who still didn't hit me.

A moment later, I was finally in range. The sniper was an imposing figure, holding a kitted-out silenced M4 Carbine with a sniper scope, which I only recognized due to playing lots of Modern Warfare. I shot twice. The man fell, and I sprinted at full-speed towards him.

When I got to him, I pinned his arm to the ground with four years' worth of high school wrestling skills, and held the gun to his head. "Who sent you?" I demanded.

The man laughed. "It doesn't matter. We'll find you, even if you kill me." He spoke with a refined British accent.

"Fuckin' Templars," I swore. "Why are you after me?"

He laughed again, sending a creepy grin my way. "Because you're an Assassin. Why else?"

I shot him through the shoulder, but his grin didn't falter. The pain seemed to almost get him off. "What? Do you think I'll tell you how to stop us? How to get away? Bloody idiot. You couldn't escape the Templar's wrath if you tried."

I shot him twice between the eyes, spending the last bullets in my clip. "Happy Chanukah."

I got back to the house and ran up to Sam. "You okay?"

"Fuck you, you piece of shit, you almost got us killed! You didn't make sure the guy was dead, you used me as a distraction, and now we have to get out of here, and I wasted sixty goddamn dollars on those fucking miniatures we'll _never get to use._ But you saved our lives, so you know what, you're not a total asshole."

"Does that constitute paying you back for the miniatures?"

"Considering the other shit you pulled? No. Try again later."

I sighed and reloaded the USP, placing my last mag in my waistband. "Okay, where's the nearest Assassin hideout?"

Sam stood up. "There's a decently-sized group down at Cape Cod."

"Ooh, I love Cape Cod. Speaking of beaches, I don't think I've ever seen you in a two-piece..." Sam punched me in the jaw. After a moment, I grabbed my face in pain. "Damn it! Okay, okay, let's get out of here." I packed up the bare essentials into a small suitcase I had laying around. We ran to the car and got in.

"Alright, Chris, we're gonna have to take a long, winding route in case we get followed."

"Can I grab my CDs?"

"Hustle."

I ran into the house and grabbed a handful of power metal albums, then got in the car. "Okay, pedal to the metal."

"To the power metal?"

"Oh, yes," I said with a grin, blasting the music.

"Keep it down, we don't want to advertise our presence."

I turned it down a bit.

We got onto the highway after fifteen minutes of driving down back roads. No cars were following us so far. We didn't speak much, we just kept vigilant.

Halfway there, Sam started looking nervously at her mirror. "Damnit, I think we're being followed."

"Do you have any grenades in here?"

"Check the glove compartment."

I opened the glove compartment and pulled a 'nade out of it. "Yup. See if you can take a back route or something, I don't want too many witnesses." I held on to the explosive. "This thing HE, or frag?"

"Frag," Sam said, getting us off the highway. A black SUV was following, and I could barely make out men in suits inside it. "If they keep following us down these roads, they're definitely Templars."

Long story short, they did. I pulled the pin and cooked it off for two seconds, then lobbed it underneath the SUV as Sam hit the gas. The grenade didn't blow up the car like I thought it would, but the shrapnel shredded the tires and the engine. Probably hit a few limbs too. It wasn't going anywhere. Luckily this road was way off the beaten path, otherwise we'd have police hot on our tail.

"Oh, don't blow this out of proportion," I called to the agents in the black car as I slid back into my seat. "See, Sam, that's how you do the one-liner, you just need context."

We kept driving for a couple of hours. I saw a sign reading "Welcome to Cape Cod!" and I sighed with relief. "How much longer?"

"Taking the back roads and twisty routes, I'd say about half an hour."

"Damn it."

When we finally got there, the sun was down, and we checked into a motel and threw our stuff on the bed. We had decided to leave our stuff here, lights on, to throw the Templars off, and then walk to the hideout. I pulled my hood up, making sure my weapons were ready, then we set off.

"I still think we should go for a swim."

"I would too, but we don't have the time. Maybe once these Templars are off our asses. Down this alley."

We headed down an alley and out on the other side, then headed East until we reached an "abandoned" restaurant. We walked in, and Sam reached under a table and pulled a switch. A wall opened up to reveal a set of stairs heading downwards. At the bottom was a pool of red liquid.

"Uh-oh," we both said simultaneously. I ran down the stairs ahead of Sam, only to find a man of Arabic descent wearing a hoodie toweling up a sweet-smelling mess in the middle of a hallway.

"Oh! You're the runners we heard about. Sorry about the mess. We're not supposed to drink on-duty, so we made some iced tea, but it spilled." He spoke with a thick New England accent.

Sam laughed. "Oh, thank God. I was about to get worried you guys were all killed. Weren't there, like, ten of you?"

"They're all out across the States right now. Right now it's me and Felicia holding down the fort."

A woman smiled at us and waved.

"She can't speak. She got her voice box stabbed in a nasty fight. To her credit, she got a kill and an incapacitation with an open neck, but I'm the only one who knows sign language, so if you need to talk to her, just ask me."

Sam waved back at her. "Don't worry, I know a good amount of ASL. Nice to meet you two. And you are?"

"You know ASL?" I asked.

"Tony. Nice to meet you guys." He threw away the paper towels and pressed a button, closing the door upstairs. "We've got some rooms open. Go ahead and get comfortable. You're gonna be here a while before we can find a way for you guys to disappear."

We both nodded. I found the nearest room and set my stuff on it, then flopped into it. I needed a good night's sleep. I fell asleep like a light.

I woke up what seemed like a second later with hand around my mouth.

"Don't move," Tony hissed. "We've got hostiles upstairs and it's only a matter of time before they find the door." He let my mouth go.

"Are the girls awake?"

"I woke them up just now," Tony assured me. "Don't worry, your girlfriend is okay."

"She's not my girlfriend," I said, just as I heard the noise of metal being cut by a thermal lance coming from upstairs.

"Oh, crap," Tony and I said at the same time.


End file.
